During last few days I was taking closer look to web browsers available on Maemo 5. This time I will give you something that we can rely more than just personal opinion, a benchmark! After you already know what it can do and if it is really good from analytical point of view you can choose one as default for your N900.

I used Browser Benchmark from Rightware, which is designed to check weather mobile browser is fast enough, with commercial version for use of browser developers, nevertheless it measures mostly the browser engine. So here are the results (more is better) and my overall score after what I’ve seen and how it really works for me:

Fennec (Firefox Mobile) – benchmark: 14726, my score: 7/10

Benchmark results for Fennec

Benchmark score for Fennec is pretty promising, nevertheless it’s measuring only the engine and cannot say much about operatibility of user interface. In my opinion it’s going in good way, just needs small improvement in speed.

Opera Mobile – benchmark: 12290, my score: 8/10

Benchmark results for Opera

Great speed and nice browsing experience going with nice benchmark score. Opera Mobile is really good solution for people who just want to browse pages and read the contents. They shouldn’t be bothered by Opera website’s style overriding to fit the text on the screen.

Midori – benchmark: 10927, my score: 6/10

Benchmark results for Midori

Another nice score from benchmark and nice features like keyboard shortcuts, still some work to be done to work nice and smoothly on touchscreen device and operate properly using kinetic scrolling.

MicroB (Maemo Browser) – benchmark: 9646, my score: 8/10

Benchmark results for MicroB

Default browser and it appears to be one of the best (at least in my opinion). This is the browser for which most of add-ons will go to when you install them from App manager. This is what you get by default and at the time is one of the best.

Chromium – benchmark: failed, my score: 4/10

Benchmark error in Chromium

Unfortunately  Chromium haven’t finished the benchmark tests, no matter what I’ve tried to do (cleaning cache, rebooting etc.), so I cannot say what would be the result if it would. I think there is a lot to do with this port before it will be really ready to use.

Tear – unable to run

There is another browser that I haven’t even touch. It’s mostly because I cannot make it work, every time I try it crashes my hildon-desktop and nothing more happens. If anyone can provide some more details, feel free to comment this post.

Browser Switchboard – a way to choose default browser.

Browser Switchboard is available in extras catalogue. It installs additional applet in Settings screen, which allows to choose systems default browser and optimize for quick startup or lower memory usage. For now you can use anything you want to browse the internet on your N900.

Settings Screen

Browser Switchboard

Browser Switchboard optimization

Summary

Now when PR1.2 came out and most of personalization and customization options were enriched (like reordering application menu) you can also think of changing default browser. My choice would be Opera (for it’s swiftness and features) or staying with MicroB (because as for default it’s really good).

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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial

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